Rhino House Band's debut EP is out!

Remember the fortunately non-extinct indie rock group Rhino House Band I once wrote about? And how I said they had an EP on the way? Well, good news guys - it's out now! The excellent five-track record bears the title Golden Summer and can be streamed on their Soundcloud page. I fell in love with the EP on the first listen, and while all the songs on the record are great, personal favourites include "James' Song" and "Dirty Hobo". I actually chose "James' Song" for the first entry for my new 'Song of the week' feature: you can find an embedded Soundcloud box to the right of the blog posts, above the archive, which will be updated weekly with a new exciting song that I want to share with my readers! So keep an eye on that thing as well.

In addition to streaming the EP for free online, you can also buy it on their Bandcamp page at whatever price you want (there's no set minimum). How cool is that? So, check out Golden Summer below and don't forget to support good indie music! 

R.I.P. western black rhinos

Due to poaching and lack of conservation efforts, the western black rhino has been declared officially extinct.

According to Daily Mail, the rare subspecies of the black rhino was heavily hunted in the beginning of the 20th century, before actions were fortunately taken, leading to an increase in population. However, by the 1980s there were only hundreds of them left. Twenty years later, in 2000, there were no more than 10 western black rhinos remaining. The last time the species was spotted was in 2006.

Poaching makes a serious threat for other rhino species as well: only 40 to 60 Javan rhinos are left, living in Ujung Kulon National Park in Indonesia, while the northern white rhino population of the planet totals at mere seven - two females, five males. Not looking very promising, is it. Experts say that unless something radical is done, the two species will follow the western black rhino to the heaven of animals, joining other hunted to death animals such as the dodo bird.

And since this is a music blog, here is a song I'll dedicate to the western black rhino. It's by a Brooklyn-based indie trio called Rhino House Band (can you see how it popped into my mind?). They are conversely only in the beginning of their career (and fortunately very much alive): the band was founded earlier this year and only has two songs out, though they also have an EP on the way. (It's out soon, according to their website where you can actually download those two said songs for free!) Personally I found them when they started following Popheaval's Tumblr page. And what would I not do to promote new music, right? Long live social media; sleep well, western black rhino, now "sleepin' in a dreamworld", to quote the lyrics. While the song has obviously nothing to do with the sad news, you can almost see the now extinct animals joyfully strolling the endless savannahs of Africa. Too bad that's history now.